A quick heads-up on the next free Uncut CD today, which Allan has compiled (with a few suggestions from me) to go with the new issue’s Velvet Underground cover story. “The Velvets Revolution” is a pretty neat survey featuring a mere 15 out of the tens of thousands of bands that the VU have influenced in the 45 years since they formed. Some nice rare-ish things here, like the Eno/Manzanera project 801 and a Suicide track I’ve never personally come across before; plus some classic ‘80s stuff like The Feelies and Loop. Most interesting, maybe, are some new tracks that Allan’s included, like “Destroyed Fortress Reappears” by Thee Oh Sees, the ultra-productive John Dwyer’s latest fierce garage band, and a group who I really haven’t listened to enough. I’d previously dismissed The Black Angels as one of those MOR indie-dronerock bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club or The Brian Jonestown Massacre, but “Never/Ever” is surprisingly good; some explanation, perhaps, for why Roky Erickson has used them as his backing band. And finally there’s The War On Drugs, who I was a bit uncommitted about on the Kurt Vile blog a while back, and who, on the strength of “Show Me The Coast”, I really need to revisit. Here’s the tracklisting, with one or two links to old blogs. Let me know what you think when you’ve had a listen (Oh, and sorry about the hype, but the cover story about the VU is a good read, too, not least when Paul Morrissey calls Lou Reed a “minor Simon & Garfunkel imitator…”). 1 The Feelies - Slipping (Into Something) 2 Thee Oh Sees - Destroyed Fortress Reappears 3 Orange Juice - Blue Boy 4 The Black Angels - Never/Ever 5 Suicide - Rain Of Ruin 6 Vivian Girls - Tension 7 Magik Markers - Risperdal 8 Espers - That Which Darkly Thrives 9 Fursaxa - Tyranny 10 Smog - Natural Decline 11 Hush Arbors - Fast Asleep 12 Loop - Too Real To Feel 13 Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions - Wild Roses 14 801 - Third Uncle 15 The War On Drugs - Show Me The Coast

Some stuff to mop up today, beginning with the excellent Glass Rock album on Ecstatic Peace! that’s been cropping up in a few of our playlists recently. It comes with the very user-friendly title of “Tall Firs Meet Soft Location”, spelling out the two bands who actually make up Glass Rock. Tall Firs I’ve come across before. With a couple of OK albums on the same Thurston Moore label that sound a little like (yes, sorry) a folkish Sonic Youth, maybe like Moore’s “Trees Outside The Academy”. Soft Location are new to me, though, and it’s their terrific singer, Kathy Leisen, who’s the star of this album; a mighty expressive, controlled singer who sometimes comes on like a bluesier, laidback PJ Harvey (especially on “Open Air”). According to the press release, “The dilettante thinks Chan Marshall or an Astral Weeks-era Van Morrison,” and I can see that too, dilettante that I undoubtedly am. The jazzy, circling “Ghost Of A Dream” is killing me at the moment and, though that one isn’t there, check the songs on Glass Rock’s Myspace; they get better and better, especially the dusty vibes of “Golddigger”, which has something of Calexico, or at least the desert, about it. A couple of things from the One Little Indian/FatCat axis. First, a reissue of Max Richter’s “Memoryhouse” album from 2002 that I think might be the best thing I’ve heard from this very Nymanish British composer. If you’ve liked any of the Johann Johannsson records on Touch and 4AD, it might be worth giving this a go. Second, there’s “Við Og Við”, by Ólöf Arnalds, which seems to have been around a while but is only just coming out in the UK. Arnalds appears to be some kind of associate of Sigur Ros, which doesn’t automatically fill me with excitement . But actually it’s pretty nice: imagine Joanna Newsom’s “Milk-Eyed Mender” translated into Icelandic, and you’re pretty close to nailing it. Finally, to Chile, and the second album from producer Matias Aguayo. “AY AY AY” is a kind of rubberised, playful, ultra-catchy techno, built out of South American rhythms I can’t pretend to easily identify, and often using Aguayo’s looping, goofy mouth music as percussion. There’s a definite affinity with El Guincho in some of this, but I also keep thinking of Robert Wyatt, or at least his whimsical scat singing, when I hear this massively enjoyable record.

Following our announcement that Mountains would be playing Club Uncut on November 5, we received an email the other day from a duo called Pausal who, to be honest, none of us had ever heard of. It turns out Pausal are a British group who’ve previously toured Europe in the company of Koen from Mountains, and who have an album due next year that’s being/been mastered by Brendon from the band. Vague worries about being duped by potentially dangerous Mountains stalkers proved as implausible as they sound. But better still, when I had a look at Pausal’s Myspace, it transpired that they’re actually pretty great. Listening to the tracks playing there, you can immediately see the kinship with Mountains. If anything, though, Pausal drift further into a kind of ambient airspace; less overtly cosmic/psychedelic, perhaps, and more obviously related to the pure ambient excursions of Brian Eno (an easy reference, of course, but it seems particularly apposite here). There’s also something faintly classical about these progressions – especially the outstanding “Song From A Cloth Pocket” – which reminds me of a lunar Arvo Part or, perhaps more accurately, Gavin Bryars. Have a listen, anyway: as you might imagine, we’ve booked them for the Mountains show, too.